


Memories are mapped out by the lines we'll trace

by trailsofpaper (Sanwall)



Series: Cross my heart and hope to die [2]
Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hand Jobs, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 22:52:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16128395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanwall/pseuds/trailsofpaper
Summary: It only takes Kyle five years to piece it all together.





	Memories are mapped out by the lines we'll trace

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote the Glastonbury-time travel escapade and then I kept finding things out about Bastille and Glastonbury, and especially Kyle and Glastonbury, which made my heart constrict. Then, after much brainstorming and insistent prodding from @laufarn and cheerleading from @salfarn I finally wrote this.  
> Huge thanks to [Trash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash) for betareading!

* * *

**2011**

* * *

Being in a band was all well and good until you had to be smuggled into a festival inside a couch because of how only three of you could get passes. Of course it had to be Kyle, he was the one with the least body mass, but that didn’t mean he _liked_ being folded inside a rundown couch with the cushions haphazardly stacked on top to give the illusion of a functioning, totally empty couch, wedged in between all of their equipment.

The only thing to say for the scheme was that it worked, and all four of them were at Glastonbury. There wasn’t a lot to do before they went on, and they were under strict orders to stay put until their set; they mostly milled about backstage, the four of them, chatting nervously when they weren’t staring at their phones. Kyle almost wore through one of his bracelets with how he was fiddling with it, but that was better than giving yourself a beard burn by obsessively stroking your own mustache. Kyle had first hand experience of the latter, as a matter of fact.

“Hey,” he said and nudged Dan’s leg with his knee where they were sitting on the couch in question. Dan blinked up from his phone, eyes owlishly large. “What d’you say to us finding something to eat?”

“I don’t know,” Dan said hesitantly, looking around the room like he was afraid of a manager showing up and yelling at him for just thinking about it. “We aren’t supposed to leave.”

“We’ll be back in a flash,” Kyle promised and nudged him again, which made Dan smile. “C’mon, it won’t do for you to faint from hunger on stage.”

Dan looked down but was still smiling, which Kyle considered a victory. It felt like another victory, that just the two of them stole away and left Will and Woody behind, though Kyle couldn’t quite say why.

Finding decent food at Glastonbury festival was not the easiest, but Kyle followed his nose, and sure enough, he managed to happen upon a taco stand, to which he dragged Dan with an excited shout. He was hungrier than he’d anticipated and devoured his tacos in approximately three bites. Then Kyle belched loudly, saw Dan wrinkle his nose at him, and said, “I could go for some decent tea right now.”

“You’d just run to the loo fifteen times during the show,” Dan shot back, but Kyle could tell his heart wasn’t in it. He was looking at his chicken burrito like he regretted biting into it, frowning forlornly.

“You nervous?” Kyle asked, because it was easier than thinking about how nervous he was himself.

“You’ve got sauce in your beard,” Dan said instead of answering. Kyle managed to wipe it off with his thumb and stuck it in his mouth, resisting the urge to sweep his fringe out of his eyes with his dirty hands. Dan seemed to notice his aborted gesture, because he gave a small laugh and reached over to sweep the fringe out of his eyes for him, a brief touch that had Kyle smiling at him around his thumb.

“What do you look forward to the most, getting back from festival season?” he asked after plopping his thumb out of his mouth, determined to get Dan out of his funk and keep the conversation going. Dan’s eyes flashed blue over the rim of his glasses when he looked up at Kyle for a brief moment, before he looked back to his food.

“I guess getting some real studio time,” he said, slowly, shifting his grip on the wrapper.

“I meant like, not work related,” Kyle said, and prodded at Dan’s leg with the toe of his trainer where they were leaned against the dirty taco stand. Dan looked up at him again, this time for a longer beat.

“Getting rid of you lot for more than a couple of hours at a time,” he replied, but his mouth quirked into a smile. The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes though, and Kyle felt a little stung.

“Oi mate, I didn’t know I was such a chore to hang out with,” he said and wiped his hands on his trousers.

“You’re not,” Dan said softly, but when Kyle looked at him he was preoccupied with his burrito again. “I suppose it’s still weird to think of this as a job.”

Kyle felt self-conscious all of a sudden, like he didn’t know what he should do with any of his limbs. He shifted and crossed his legs, still leaning on the stand. It _was_ weird to think of this as a job, and Kyle was well aware of how lucky he’d been to get to be a part of it.

Dan only managed another two bites of the burrito before he had to consider himself beaten by the nerves, and chucked the rest of it in the bin on their way back to Woody and Will where they had to wait another two hours. Kyle wasn’t looking forward to it.

Inexplicably, after his phone ran out of battery and without a charging station in sight, Kyle grew sleepy. None of the others seemed keen on engaging him, not even Dan who was frantically texting someone. Kyle stretched out on the couch that had seen him inside, pulled a quilt all the way up to his chin and fell asleep.

△

He had no way of gauging how much time had passed when he woke up, except everything was completely dark. Kyle felt like he should panic, but it was difficult when he was so comfortable, warm and snug and sleepy. He blinked blearily - he could barely make out the outline of a window with the drapes drawn shut. The room smelled warm, almost musty, but in a pleasant way.

It took his sleep-addled brain a moment or two to realize why he was so comfortable. He was in a bed, under a blanket, with someone spooned up behind him, their arm a warm weight across his waist.  Kyle screwed his eyes shut and tried to keep his breathing even, so as to not alert whoever it was while he figured it out. He must have stiffened though, because the person shifted behind him, and Kyle heard a familiar voice whisper, “It’s okay, I’m here. I’m not leaving.”

Kyle hadn’t ever heard Dan’s voice gritty with sleep like this, but it was unmistakable. _This is a dream,_ Kyle thought with morbid fascination, eyes still shut, as he felt Dan’s hand shift where it was slung over his stomach, to press against his chest, and then Dan’s lips against the nape of his neck.

An involuntary, soothing thrill ran down Kyle’s spine at the touch, and his body relaxed further into the mattress with it. Dan wouldn’t know how much he liked neck kisses, Kyle figured, so it had to be a dream. It faded out anyway, as he fell back to sleep.

△

What Kyle remembered most from Bastille’s gig in Glastonbury 2011 was how bloody cold it had been - he’d fumbled on his keyboard more than once due to stiff fingers. That, and how he’d been thrown out the following day for not having a pass - which made for a great story later, so Kyle wasn’t complaining. Sometimes though, when he saw Dan early in the mornings, or one of them had to take an emergency nap in the studio, Kyle would remember that oddly vivid dream he’d had, of waking up with Dan’s arms around him and the room smelling of sex.

* * *

**2013**

* * *

Having a tour manager was still a novel idea, and it felt great to have someone else take charge and badger Dan when they were about to be late. Not that it was like Dan to be the last one in, Kyle thought and turned around to find him slumped against the wall in what looked like a full-fledged panic attack. Kyle’s own pulse kicked up a notch in sympathy. He’d had plenty of doubt about his place in the band (being smuggled in like contraband to a festival would do anyone’s head in) but Kyle knew that most of everything rested on Dan’s shoulders, and it had to get to him sometimes, hadn’t it?

When Kyle prodded, Dan told him he’d forgotten the setlist with a look of unbridled fear on his face, like Kyle was a three-headed monster that had just unhinged its jaw to swallow him whole. He seemed tired too, dark rings under his eyes and a deep line etched between his eyebrows. Kyle suspected it was just his nerves getting the better of him, but he still found a sharpie and wrote the setlist on the drum skin. It was actually therapeutic, Kyle thought as he scribbled. He’d remember it better himself.

He hugged Dan before they went on, and, though he stiffened at first, Dan settled into the hug like he was starving for it. He clung to Kyle for a breathless moment, and something warm fluttered in Kyle’s stomach besides the butterflies before performing.

“You’re going to rock it,” he told Dan, because he was sure he would. Dan always did.

Kyle kept watching him as much as he could during the show whenever he didn’t have to concentrate on what his hands were doing. His eyes kept flicking up to him during Flaws too, it was hard for him not to, but Kyle knew he shouldn’t. Flaws was one of the tricky ones to play and he needed to keep all his concentration on where his fingers needed to be. Besides, Dan never stayed in one place for long, even when he wasn’t swallowed by the crowd.

But there was something about him tonight - Kyle had been right, he _was_ rocking it. He was magnetic, inhabiting his body in a completely new way; his voice was different as well, it had a depth and a wistfulness to it that didn’t feel quite familiar.  

Dan moved with a different sort of confidence, like he was comfortable with, not the world around him, but with himself, and was happy to let Kyle in. He tried to tell Dan as much, but that was later, after Kyle had pressed him up against the door and kissed him.

“I’m having a midsummer night’s dream,” Dan had said philosophically, like that explained everything.

But there was something special about Glastonbury, Kyle had always thought, an oddly untethered feeling to the festival like whatever happened here, happened out of time. It felt safe, to stay a little closer to Dan, to touch him a little more than usual, like there’d be no consequences to his actions. It felt good, natural, to selfishly take Dan away from the others, to be alone with him for a moment. Not that Kyle had ever expected - they were _friends,_ and it was Kyle’s problem to deal with. Just because he’d had a dream once, just because Dan was a fit bloke who laughed at Kyle’s jokes, just because Kyle liked how raspy Dan’s voice was early in the morning or sometimes when he sang, he’d never _expected them to-_ expected Dan to follow him into Kyle’s room and-

Kyle wished he hadn’t had so much to drink. His heartbeat was in his throat, his pulse too hot under his skin, and when Dan dropped to his knees it was all Kyle had to stay upright. He’d had fantasies about Dan, he was only a man after all, but nothing in his wildest dreams could ever match up to the way Dan pressed his face between Kyle’s thighs, like he was desperate for it. It almost didn’t feel real, when Dan rolled them over in bed and told Kyle, with his voice raw and husky, that he wanted Kyle to fuck him. It was oddly reminiscent of a dream, and Kyle felt fervent in his need to touch, to make sure it was real.

Kyle wanted it to last forever, but he also couldn’t stop himself from wanting it all right away. The way Dan’s body moved against his, the sounds he made, Kyle wanted it so much he felt like he would die with it. Dan sighed into his mouth, happily, when they kissed.

As they caught their breath afterwards, sweaty and sated, Kyle didn’t quite connect the dots. He couldn’t follow the trajectory of going from being friends to being this; it was a hazy road that Kyle suspected would fork at some point - but what was that saying about gift horses? He would cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, Kyle was content to just pull Dan closer and get lost in the moment, which seemed to be just was Dan wanted to do too.

It wasn’t like Kyle had imagined. He could never have imagined being allowed to pull Dan close and fall asleep with his nose pressed to Dan’s neck. Vaguely, he remembered a dream from years ago, and even more vaguely, already half-asleep, he remembered them entangled in the bed and Dan saying, “I’m going to leave.”

But Kyle only pulled him closer and fell asleep.

△

Kyle didn’t remember removing all of his rings until the following morning, when he curled his fingers into a fist and it felt naked and strange.

It also felt strange to wake up alone. Kyle sat up in the bed and fumbled around until he found his rings on the dresser, and he put them on one by one. He paused for a second, rolled the Claddagh ring between thumb and index finger, and listened in vain for sounds in the bathroom.There was no sounds in the room at all, and yet Kyle turned the ring upside down and put it on his right hand, with the point of the heart pointing towards his wrist instead of his fingertip.

The empty bathroom was weird, because when Kyle got out of bed to pull on pants and trousers, he found Dan’s clothes where they’d left them last night. Kyle frowned; Dan nipping down the corridor to his own room starkers didn’t seem very likely. So he put on a top, gathered Dan’s clothes into his arms and stepped out of his room. Kyle knocked at Dan’s door but got no reply, so he tested the handle - and the door swung open, which was weird too, but Kyle stepped inside anyway.

He saw Dan immediately, sprawled out on his bed on top of the covers, wearing another set of clothes. His chest was rising and falling slowly, his breathing uneven enough that Kyle knew he wasn’t faking sleep, so he tried to be quiet as he approached. His mind was racing, but he didn’t know towards what, and Kyle breathed in shakily and set the clothes down on Dan’s bedside. Maybe Dan just wasn’t used to sharing a bed. Maybe he sleepwalked - Kyle scoffed at himself. _Yeah right, sleepwalked and sleep-got dressed. Not bloody likely._ He took a moment, to look at Dan’s sleeping face. It was smoothed out, the deep line that had seemed etched in between his eyebrows last night gone. It made him look a lot younger, Kyle thought.

Dan mumbled something then, eyes still closed, and turned over on the side. Kyle’s heartbeat stuttered and he froze like a deer in the headlights.

Last night, Dan had said he was going to leave, hadn’t he? Something unnameable clenched Kyle’s gut, and he had to swallow before he turned and padded back out into the corridor. There was no way he’d get any more sleep, so he went in search for breakfast, trying his best not to think about it at all.

The previous night kept coming back to him in bursts, like candid snapshots. Dan digging his fingers into Kyle’s back. Kyle pressing his teeth into the skin of Dan’s throat before tasting the sweat of it. Dan blinking up at him, like he couldn’t quite believe what was happening even when he pulled Kyle down over him. When Kyle pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes, all he could remember was Dan settling into his arms.

It was a relief when Woody stumbled down, poured himself a glass of orange juice and started to quiz Kyle on how he thought the gig had gone. Kyle was a professional, he could be professional about it, and it was a whole lot less traumatic to recall the show last night.

When Dan finally made it down to breakfast too, he seemed almost jetlagged. Kyle found no words as Dan asked them what day it was, and _what happened last night? Nothing,_ he claimed when Woody told him, _he remembered nothing of the gig at all,_ and Kyle thought it was a bit dramatic, the shock on Dan’s face.

There had to be easier ways to tell a one night stand it was only that, Kyle thought and buried his nose in his tea as Dan frantically looked up pictures from last night’s show. Christ, it hurt, but then again, maybe this was Dan’s twisted way of protecting his feelings - not just the hookup, but the entire gig, gone. No memory. Absolving Kyle of having to deal with it at all.

It hurt even more, to look at him, but Kyle still found himself furtively glancing at Dan and the column of his throat, trying to catch sight of the love bite he’d left there, almost vindictively. But whatever he’d left behind, the collar covered it, and Kyle decided to leave it behind him.

He supposed he’d been right about Glastonbury. No consequences to his actions, and maybe that was for the best.

* * *

**2016**

* * *

 Hearing the news about Brexit kind of took all the fun out of being at a festival, even if it was Glastonbury. Kyle felt like the wind had been knocked out of him, but it wasn’t the only reason he declined to go with Dan to give the NME interview. Will stepped up instead, solid, dependable Will, and Kyle mostly felt like curling up in his shitty room and feel bad for himself.

It had been three years, and even though Kyle was over it (he _was,_ really) it was hard not to get caught up in what he might have done wrong on a day like this, just as it was hard not to wonder what they had all done wrong, to have this, the most catastrophic outcome possible. And maybe Kyle was the most selfish wanker on the planet, but seeing Dan waltz around Glastonbury hurt more than the impending collapse of European-British relations.

Still, when Will and Dan got back from the interview, Dan sat down beside Kyle in the couch and relaxed with a sigh, like he didn’t have to think twice about it. He pushed a hand through his hair, standing out like a fractured halo, and Kyle’s fingers itched with the need  to reach out and tamp it down.

“Alright, mate?” Dan asked, and Kyle hummed in response. He had his knees uncharacteristically pressed together, fighting against the urge to splay them wide and maybe knock into Dan’s leg in the process.

“Nervous?” Kyle asked, more to have something to say. Dan’s hands were lying in his lap, loosely curled, and his right hand twitched once, like he wanted to reach out but didn’t.

“Not more than usual,” he replied. “I only hope I’ll remember it this time.”

He said it so casually, too, with a small, bright laugh. Kyle wished he could hate Dan for it, but he couldn’t, had never been able to hold it against him, because he knew too well the anxiety that Dan navigated every day, recognized it in how Dan withdrew when he thought he’d done something wrong. So, when Dan got up and told them he was going to get ready, Kyle grimaced at him in a way that might pass for a smile and let it go. He waited a beat for Dan to disappear into his room before he got up and went into his own to clear his head.

Whatever, Kyle was a professional now. This band was the best thing that had happened to him; this time he hadn’t been smuggled in via a couch, this time he wouldn’t make a bad call drunk off success and booze and Dan, this time they would play a great gig on a bigger stage, and this time Kyle would be _professional_ about it.

△

Kyle rifled through his clothes, packed into an unforgiving rolling suitcase, and acutely missed his duffel bag that he’d lost a year back. He pulled out a white short-sleeved shirt and eyed it critically, before he went to pull out the ironing board and iron. _See?_ he thought bitterly and quickly brushed his teeth while the iron warmed. _Professional._

The universe wasn’t going to make it easy on him though, because just when he’d put the ironing board away and shrugged the shirt on over his t-shirt and yanked the door open to go find something else to do, Dan was standing outside his door with his hand raised to knock. Kyle, despite himself, said, “Dan!”

Dan said, “Kyle!” and nothing else for long enough that Kyle felt compelled to let him inside when he said he wanted to talk. They were friends after all.

In the light falling in from the window, Dan’s eyes were unfairly blue, there was that deep wrinkle between his black eyebrows and he had his lower lip pulled in between his teeth, and Kyle wanted to punch him for looking like that. He didn’t though; Dan seemed frantic with worry in stark contrast to his earlier, subdued countenance, and Kyle’s mind raced with trying to come up with an explanation.

Then, of course, Dan had to go and say that he did remember them hooking up three years ago.

Kyle tried to turn his gut-churning anxiety into anger. The success was only partial, and then he made the mistake of looking Dan in the eyes again. They were huge and red-rimmed, like he was on the verge of tears, and Kyle’s stomach twisted. He never imagined he’d made Dan this uncomfortable, and he cursed himself for not getting over his stupid feelings sooner, that he’d somehow made this so fucking difficult for him _, for years._

And then, after Kyle had started to suspect either he or Dan was tripping, Dan grabbed him by the arm and said the only thing that could ever top that bombshell:

“I traveled through fucking time and you gave me this fucking love bite when we had sex in two thousand fucking thirteen and I know it sounds completely mad but I can still feel your fucking cock in my arse.”

Kyle stared, jaw slack and eyes wide. He wanted nothing more than to make sense of it, but it was an impossible, Herculean task. Dan looked - well, still sad, but also determined.

“I- I need to sit down,” Kyle said at last, and did just that, collapsing on his bed like his legs wouldn’t hold him anymore.

Dan was many things, but he wasn’t mad, and he wasn’t cruel. Kyle knew this, he was as close to Dan as his closest friends, and in many ways this made a lot more sense than Dan straight up forgetting an entire night, or lying for years about something like that to -what? Spare Kyle’s feelings?

Besides, Dan was a complete shit liar. Kyle looked up at him, his eyes that were large and honest, and with Kyle’s silence the tilt of his mouth turned vulnerable.

“I’m sorry it took a time trip for me to find out how much I care about you and- god, Kyle, no matter how drunk I was, I would never- I could never pretend that didn’t happen,” Dan said, tripping over his words in his haste to get them out. “And I’m so fucking sorry I did that to you and I wish- I just, I shouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t have,” Kyle said slowly, feeling absurdly enough like he wanted to laugh. It would have saved the both of them a lot of heartache if Dan hadn’t, but could Kyle with his hand on his heart say that he wouldn’t have done the same? If time had catapulted _him_ to a place where he’d stumbled on a Dan that was willing and welcoming?

Dan closed his eyes, screwed them shut like he was waiting for rejection, and Kyle’s heart stuttered painfully. He got to his feet again. Maybe it was just what he wanted to believe, Dan saying everything he’d wanted to hear, but as Kyle reached out and touched the love bite on Dan’s neck, he wanted so much to kiss him. Dan opened his eyes, and Kyle let himself be convinced.

“I can’t believe the universe had to send you through time for you to get laid,” he said, like humour would make the situation better.

“Kyle,” Dan said, his hand coming up to grab his wrist. Instinctively, they both moved closer, just one step each that brought them so close that Dan had to crane his neck to look Kyle in the eyes.

“It’s been three years,” Kyle said, lowering his voice so it wouldn’t break.

“I know. I’m so sorry,” Dan said again, and Kyle thought they could say sorry to each other forever and never move forward, so instead he leaned in and kissed him.

Kyle had thought he remembered what it was like to kiss Dan. He didn’t; his memories were a pale imitation of the real thing, warm and inviting with a hint of electricity that had Kyle pushing closer, heart in his throat. He blinked when they parted, not quite able to believe it was real yet.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get to do that again,” he said in awe, and Dan’s expression of surprised bliss turned to heartbreak in a split second. He opened his mouth again, so Kyle hurried to break him off with another kiss and the words; ““You have to stop saying you’re sorry, I get it.”

“So, we should just- move past it?” Dan said, almost shyly. Kyle trailed his thumb across Dan’s cheek, looked down for a second before he met his eyes again.

“We should look to the future, don’t you think?” he said, and the way Dan’s smile made something warm expand inside him made Kyle certain that it would be the right choice. Or it wasn’t, but damn the consequences. It felt nice, Kyle reflected, feeling Dan’s hands on him.

They didn’t separate even when Dick banged on the door to ask Kyle if he knew where Dan was, but Kyle turned his head and said yes. He turned back, to press his lips against Dan’s hair.

“You up for a bit of singing, time traveler?”

△

It was difficult to remember the specifics of a show, Kyle had always thought. He could remember generalities - the mood of the crowd, if he’d played well, if Dan seemed energetic. From Glastonbury 2016, he’d remember the sun in their eyes and the way his heart seemed to want to burst through his chest the entire time, nerves and anticipation and sheer, joyful giddiness all rolled up in one. Dan seemed to share it, shooting Kyle a blinding grin when they tumbled off stage to ringing cheers.

“You lads up for some drinks?” Woody asked backstage, reaching up to catch Charlie in a headlock. Will nodded amiably as he stretched his arms above his head, working out whatever kink he had in his back.

“I don’t know,” Kyle said and shot Dan a look where he was gulping down a bottle of water. “I think we need to make up for some lost time.” Dan choked on the water, but none of the others seemed interesting in quizzing them on what Kyle meant, all of them already looking forward to getting absolutely smashed.

“All right, catch up with us later!” Charlie said cheerfully, still weighed down by Woody’s arm, and waved at the brass section to follow.

“Make up for lost time?” Dan repeated when they were back at the hotel, in Kyle’s room, the door closing behind them with a promising thud. “You don’t think it’s too early for jokes like that?”

“It’s been three years,” Kyle reminded him and sat down on the bed so heavily that he bounced a little. “Come on, come here.”

Dan regarded him quietly for a moment, but before Kyle could start worrying he walked over to stand in between his splayed knees. Kyle set his hands on Dan’s hips, worried the fabric of his t-shirt between his fingers. The silence between them wasn’t oppressive even though it was heavy, and Kyle didn’t know how to break it.

“I’ve made a bloody mess of things, haven’t I?” Dan said at last, set his hands on Kyle’s shoulders to cup his neck, loosely.

“I think the time travel made a bloody mess of things,” Kyle said and looked up at Dan, who absently started to run his thumb along Kyle’s jawline, alternately ruffling or smoothing down his beard. It tickled a bit, but in a pleasant way that sent a little shiver down Kyle’s back.

“Not sure I can blame the time travel.”

Kyle huffed out a breath and pushed at Dan’s leg with his foot to pull him down over him on the bed. With his back against the sheets and Dan’s weight on top of him, it was easy to let gravity do the work and kiss - languidly, exploratory. Rediscovering what it was like to kiss Dan.

Kyle tried to not think about how it had been yesterday, for Dan. He half wanted to ask for notes, if he’d improved- but at the same time, Kyle couldn’t stand to know, so he only tangled their tongues together when Dan opened his mouth, clutching him closer. Soon they were grinding on each other, still kissing, still dressed, and it was so slow, so agonizingly slow, but Kyle didn’t have it in him to escalate. There was a hum in his chest, a pressure that he didn’t know what to do with, except have Dan keep kissing him.

Dan moved to kiss Kyle’s throat, but Kyle made a noise and pulled him back with both hands, desperate for his mouth. He buried his fingers in Dan’s hair and Dan kissed his lower lip,  pushing a hand up his shirt.

“Tell me what you want,” Dan said, mouth pressed to the corner of Kyle’s, and he sounded almost pleading. His fingers curled against Kyle’s skin before he splayed them along his ribs, tentatively.

“I don’t know,” he replied and tried pushing his own hand up Dan’s shirt, counting the vertebrae of his spine as he went, while keeping the other hand in his hair. “Last time I just... it was just you.”

He could feel Dan shudder, felt it travel down his back under his hand, and this time Kyle let Dan bury his face in his neck where he breathed for a second.

“And this time?” Dan said then, his voice a vibration against Kyle’s skin. Kyle slid his hand down so he could fit his thumb along Dan’s jaw and gently tilt his face up, so they could look each other in the eyes.

“It’s still just you,” he said, pulse quickening. Dan blinked, a clip of surprise, and Kyle almost laughed. He ran his thumb along Dan’s jaw, looked down at his reddened mouth for a second. “You were a bit selfish, to take advantage of how easy I was for you three years ago.”

“I just didn’t know you’d-” Dan gave a shuddering exhale and shifted his weight off Kyle, like he was about to sit up. Kyle slid his hand further up his shirt and grabbed him by the neck, just firmly enough to keep him in place. His heart was in his throat and his blood was thrumming painfully in every vein when Dan looked at him and finished, quietly, “I didn’t think you’d want me now.”

Kyle slid one hand down Dan’s back and the other back up to his hair, to thread his fingers through it. He looked Dan over for a moment, cataloguing his freckles, the straight line of his nose, and his thin lips parted in hesitation, the flush to his cheeks.

“You’re completely daft, then,” Kyle said and saw Dan frown in protest, body tensing under his hands. Kyle laughed and coaxed him in closer, strained his neck to press a kiss to Dan’s lips.

Dan made a noise and sank into the kiss, his body growing heavy on top of Kyle in the best kind of way. Kyle’s cock twitched lazily in his underwear, and he shifted so that Dan’s leg fell in between his; he could feel Dan hard against his hip too and it was intoxicating. Kyle had no idea how he’d managed years without this.

The kisses soon grew deep, their touches frantic as they moved against each other. Kyle wanted all of Dan at once, so he tugged impatiently at his t-shirt until Dan sat up and pulled it over his head. With him sitting across his stomach, Kyle could easily reach over and undo the button on his jeans and pull the zipper down, and Dan let out a breath of laughter in response.

Dan’s body felt familiar, Kyle thought, but it wasn’t just from that one hazy night three years ago. It was the same Dan he had hugged before every show for more than three years, the same Dan he’d leaned on and helped to his feet and once, in Germany, carried all the way to the tour bus from the bar. Dan pulled at Kyle’s shirt too, and Kyle grabbed him by the back to heave himself up as well, almost toppling the both of them over. Dan shifted closer in his lap and bent down to kiss Kyle, and it was novel, for Kyle, to have to crane his neck for it.

Their hands tangled when they both tried to rid Kyle of his clothes, and this time they ended up with Kyle on top of Dan pressed flat against the sheets, both laughing.

“Was it this awkward last time?” Kyle said, still chuckling as he pushed up on his arms. Dan’s expression sobered as he looked up at him.

“No- no, and I don’t think this is awkward now.” His lips twitched into a smile. “Which is a first for me, to be honest. Or a second, I suppose.”

Kyle laughed again, but he thought he understood what Dan meant - they were both half-naked and fumbling with each other like teenagers, but Kyle didn’t feel self-conscious in that way he sometimes did during sex - too aware of his own body in relation to his partner. He was so focused on Dan, his every move and change of expression, that his own movement was instinctual, a by-product. He shifted to slid one hand down Dan’s stomach, over smooth, warm skin, to the lining of his pants.

“Can I be selfish with you, for just- for tonight?” Kyle whispered.  Dan blinked again, slowly, and his eyes flicked over Kyle’s face, to try to gauge his expression, before he said:

“Yeah. Of course.” Dan reached up to grab at Kyle’s neck with both hands, pressed their foreheads together and added, “Please.”

Kyle breathed out and pushed his hand into Dan’s pants, and felt Dan’s cock twitch against his palm. Dan made a noise and Kyle looked at him where they still had their foreheads pressed together - he had his eyes closed but mouth open, and he was so beautiful Kyle felt that he’d had his breath punched out of him.

Resisting the urge to keep looking at him, Kyle captured Dan’s open mouth in a kiss and started to work him over with his hand, slowly and with the intent of finding out what would make his breath hitch. He hadn’t spared much thought to his own arousal, but with how Dan moved underneath him, sporadically pressing up against him and moving his hands all over him, it was impossible to ignore. Especially when Dan groaned and hooked his fingers in the lining of Kyle’s trousers, clawing at the button until he got it open.

Kyle didn’t think he’d gotten off like this in years, trousers still half on, hands in each others pants, legs hanging off the bed. It was a little uncomfortable, a lot juvenile, but Dan gasped into his mouth and Kyle braced his elbow on the bed to cup his face, and when they came it was within moments of each other, and all of it felt great. Like it fit.

“It was- it was more involved last time, wasn’t it?” Kyle said into Dan’s neck, their chests heaving against each other as Kyle had to fight not to sink into him, arms trembling with the effort.

“Yeah- lots,” Dan mumbled and ran his hand up Kyle’s back, like he was mapping it out. “But this was great. Perfect. It’s been a weird day.”

“You can say that again,” Kyle said and pushed up on his arms, catching his breath. His eyelids felt heavy when he blinked down at Dan.

“Can we just- sleep?” Dan said, voice small and hand still on Kyle’s back. Kyle reached down to trail a finger through their combined mess on Dan’s stomach and smiled.

“Alright,” he said and fumbled around on the bed until he came up with Dan’s t-shirt and used it to  wipe them off. Dan squirmed and laughed under his ministrations, but Kyle was relentless, and when they both had shucked off their remaining clothes and crawled under the covers, they were both dry.

To Kyle’s surprise, Dan ended up being the bigger spoon, wedging his arm under Kyle’s neck and slinging the other over his midsection, pulling him close. It had been a weird day for Kyle too, and sleep was tugging at him insistently, but he still shifted against Dan, turned his head up to ask,

“What was it like, traveling in time?”

“I don’t know,” Dan said and kissed Kyle’s neck, just behind his ear. “I just fell asleep and woke up in the wrong time.”

“Don’t do it again,” Kyle said and set his own hand on top of Dan’s where it rested on his chest.

“I’ll try not to,” Dan said, sounding as sleepy as Kyle felt. It felt oddly familiar to be spooned by Dan like this, like déjà vu or a half-remembered dream, and Kyle pressed back, angling for another kiss to his neck. Dan did kiss his neck again, easily, and Kyle felt his limbs grow pleasantly heavy with sleep.

△

He became half aware when he was way less comfortable, covered not by Dan’s arm but by a scratchy quilt over his naked body. Again, a strange sliver of memory picked at Kyle’s consciousness, but before he could even open his eyes he was pulled back under by sleep, the experience too hazy to even be called a dream.

△

Kyle opened his eyes with a start, suddenly wide awake in Dan’s arms.

“Dan,” he said, his voice too loud in the dark room, and Dan groaned into the nape of his neck. “Dan, did you just say something?”

“I only said I wasn’t going anywhere,” Dan murmured, and the hand still slung over Kyle tightened reflexively, his knuckles rubbing against his chest in a comforting up-and-down.

“Mate,” Kyle said and shifted so he was lying on his back, half angled towards Dan who protested weakly, pawing at Kyle’s chest. “Dan, mate, I think I traveled in time.”

This at least woke Dan up some. He opened his eyes, blinked blearily at Kyle, and said, “What?”

“Just for a second, but- “ Kyle had to push up on his elbow and then to a sitting position. “But I think... I think I traveled to here, back in, fuck, 2011. I thought I’d dreamt it.”

Dan sat up too, the covers pooling around his waist as he looked Kyle intently in the eyes. That furrow between his eyebrows was back, creasing his forehead. “Dreamt what?”

Kyle pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and groaned. “I can’t- I can’t quite remember. I, um, I fell asleep before our first Glastonbury gig, on that stupid couch, and then I- then I woke up in a bed, spooned by you, and you told me everything was going to be fine or something, and- and then you kissed my neck and I fell back asleep.”

“What?” Dan said, sounding absolutely taken aback. “How- Why didn’t you tell me?”

Kyle laughed, hands still pressed against his eyes. “Because I thought it was a bloody dream, alright? Fuck.”

He felt Dan shift, and then gingerly touch his arm. Kyle lowered his hands into his lap and blinked. Dan looked down and took both of his hands into his own.

“Glastonbury’s fucking weird,” he said slowly. “2011? Fuck. We smuggled you in.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said with a weak chuckle, and laced their fingers together. “This has been a long time coming, hasn’t it?”

Dan swallowed audibly. “Some other bloke might think it’s too bloody strange to deal with.”

“If- If you think I’m going to let you go after this has been five fucking years in the making, you better think again,” Kyle said and tightened his grip on Dan’s hand. Time travel be damned, they were going to make it work. Dan’s lips quirked into a hesitant smile, and then he leaned in to kiss Kyle on the lips in agreement.


End file.
